Friends and Lovers
by Mindy35
Summary: Jack/Liz, Jack/Avery, Jack/Nancy. Liz helps Jack try to choose between two women.


Title: Friends and Lovers

Author: Mindy

Rating: K+, sexual references

Disclaimer: Character's are property of NBC, Tina Fey etc.

Spoilers: thru' to 'Khonani'.

Pairing: Jack/Nancy, Jack/Avery, Jack/Liz

Summary: Liz helps Jack try to choose.

-x-x-x-

"Perhaps I should sleep with Nancy."

"Yeah, that's gonna make this whole thing less complicated."

"I'm just saying, the sex with Avery-"

"Oh my God…" Liz rose, but felt Jack's hand curl around her elbow.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, pulling her back onto the couch.

She flopped back against the leather, moaning: "I so don't need to hear this."

"You are here," he said, casting her a sidelong glance: "to offer your unbiased opinion. To help me make the right decision."

"Yeah, well, I was tricked." She waved a hand at the leftovers on the coffee table. "You lured me with pizza, which is not a thing a good friend does. In my unbiased opinion."

Jack leant forward, picking up another slice and absently handing it across. "Here, Lemon. Eat."

She scowled: "And now I know you're desperate..." But shoved it in her mouth anyway. "This slice is going straight to my butt. So I hope you're happy."

"Your butt is the least of my worries."

"Also mine," she mumbled, mouth full.

Jack returned his attention to the side by side pictures of Avery and Nancy that smiled blankly back at them. "All I mean is…what if I decide on Nancy and then we sleep together and the sex is terrible?"

"That's a quandary alright."

"Lemon."

"What?"

He turned to her. His gaze flicked to the pizza rolling around in her mouth, brow furrowed disapprovingly. "You're not helping. You were provided with pizza on the understanding that you would provide some clarity."

Liz shrugged, swallowing her mouth full. "Then by all means, go ahead and have sex with your first crush. I'm sure that'll solve everything. I'm sure you'll find plenty of…clarity."

"Huh…" Jack nodded in comprehension. "I get what you're saying."

"You do?"

He nodded some more, eyes narrowed. "You're saying that there's a reason Nancy and I haven't slept together yet."

"Uh…she was married?"

"You're saying," he went on: "my connection with her is not based solely on sexual desire."

"Okay. Sure."

"It's based on friendship."

"Jack-"

"Mutual remembrances, shared experience, saltwater taffy."

"Jack-"

He stopped, met her eyes. "I still want to sleep with her though."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course you do."

"So then why didn't I? When I had the chance? Why'd I leave?"

"Boy, I dunno. Maybe you had an attack of conscience. Maybe you weren't willing to compromise your friendship with Nancy by crossing that line. D'you ever think of that?"

"Hm." Jack was silent a moment, before noting: "An attack of conscience doesn't sound like me."

She shook her head. "It really doesn't."

"Okay, you talk now." He leant back against the couch, elbow brushing hers. "And talk some sense, if you could try."

Liz let out a sigh, looking ahead at the pictures of the two women vying for her friend's affections. "Look, Jack…I like Nancy, I really do. She's sweet and normal and goofy. She was really encouraging when we went to that singles thing and she seems to really like you. In a way, she reminds me of me. Only pretty. And married. Or divorced. With kids. And a home. And you want to sleep with her, which is…you know, good for her."

Jack nodded. "I think it would be, yes."

"But…my point is-" she faltered, shook her head: "What I'm trying to say is…do you really think that you can base a lasting relationship on things you experienced over thirty years ago? Do you think you can just pick up decades later, settle down with someone you used to worship as a dumb, hormonal teenager? A woman who's been married to another man until a couple of days ago, who has kids of her own and a whole other life that's not here? Aren't you both completely different people now, in completely different places?"

"But it's not like that with Nancy," he insisted, eyes all lit-up: "Our connection is not just in the past. And I grant you, there are some complications. But I like Nancy now as much as I used to lust after Nancy then."

"Then…why'd you go out with Avery?"

"Avery?"

Liz frowned. "Yeah. Avery." She flung out an arm, pointing to Avery's paper face. "That one. The other one. Remember her? She of the hot sex times?"

Jack looked over at Avery's picture. "Have you _seen_ her?"

Liz looked at her too, then shrugged. "Yeah, I have, Jack. So what? She's not that great looking. There are loads of women in New York just like that. So…why her?"

"Well," he mused, head tipped to one side: "with Avery, it's not just about her looks. Or her sex appeal, which is considerable."

"Right."

"She's also very smart-"

"What-" she couldn't help interrupting: "cos she can read the tele-prompter super fast? That counts as smart to you?"

Jack looked at her, blue eyes brimming with mockery. "Your insecurities are showing, Lemon."

Her eyes narrowed in return. "Shut it, Jack."

"Not to mention your intellectual snobbery."

"I can leave, you know." She shifted to the edge of the couch in warning. "This pizza is not that awesome. And I have a panini waiting for me at home and a super hunky guy who actually listens to me, so."

"You're not going anywhere," he said. "And I listen to you."

She humphed. "What you wanna hear."

Jack just smiled. "And might I remind you that he's fictional. A complete illusion, who does and says only what you want him to."

"That's the way I like 'em."

"Which explains an awful lot."

"Okay, changing the subject now-" She grabbed her wineglass and took a large gulp. "Back to Avery."

Jack drew in a long breath, propping one elbow on the arm of the couch, his shirtsleeve rolled up. "Avery," he said, admiration filling his tone: "is…confident, ambitious, social. Like me. And she has this ruthless side that I find simply…" His voice trailed off, his eyes glazing over in a way that generally meant his mind had detoured into erotic territory.

"So basically," Liz surmised, pulling a face: "you like her because she's a female version of yourself."

Jack snapped back to the present. "Exactly."

"Well, congratulations," she muttered: "You finally fulfilled your deep desire to make love to yourself, Jack."

He smirked. "I assume you have no such desire, Lemon."

"To make love to you or to make love to myself?"

"The latter."

"Right," she nodded. "Well, both, really, if you must know."

Jack sniffed, raising an eyebrow. "Can we get back to the, ah…?"

"We absolutely can." She nodded again. "Please. Let's do that."

"If I'm honest," Jack murmured after another moment in which he studied Avery's smiling face: "the age difference between Avery and I does concern me."

Liz sipped at her wine. "That might be the first thing you've said that makes some sense."

"But then," he added: "ever since Bianca, I've never really pictured myself settling down with someone my own age either."

"A little less sense there."

His eyes shifted across to Nancy's portrait. "And Nancy is lovely now, of course. But what about in five years, ten years? She has had two children, remember, and as I said before, we haven't…so I haven't had the chance to…sample the wares, if you get my meaning."

Liz wagged her head. "Oh my God, you have no idea how much you suck right now."

"And yet," he went on, utterly oblivious: "doesn't it also say something about my relationship with Nancy that we've waited?"

"Yeah, you're a real saint, Jack. Not cheating on the woman you've been seeing by sleeping with your unhappily married friend."

Jack shifted on the couch, facing her suddenly, one foot tucked under his opposite knee and an arm resting along the back of the couch as he lent just a tiny bit too close. "Don't mock, Lemon…I just meant that when I went to her hotel room that night, I was happy just to _be with her_. Cuddling in bed, sipping cheap booze and watching old movies. Her in her ratty old pyjamas, snacking on junk food." He shook his head. "It was adorable. It was…comfortable. And isn't that the stuff that makes a marriage really? If you can just enjoy those little things together? If you just _like being_ with that person?"

She nodded, answering quietly: "I guess so."

Jack paused, his focus drifting away from her face. "If only Nancy were a few years younger. Or Avery a few years older. That would be a happy medium, I think. Perhaps then I could make a choice."

Liz moved away from him, leaning over for another slice of cold pizza. "Yeah. Well, you should choose. You're not getting any younger yourself, you know."

Jack sighed, running a hand over his forehead. "I don't think we're getting anywhere here. I'm not sure you've been any help at all."

"Aw, that's too bad," she said, picking olives off her pizza.

"I think I might be more confused than when we began."

She lifted the slice to her lips. "Yeah. I have that effect on men."

"I don't doubt." Jack lent forward all of a sudden, grasping both her wrists. "So put down the pizza, Lemon."

Liz frowned and fought him: "Wha-? Jaaack-"

He tried to shake the slice loose. "Now, Lemon. Put it down-"

"Nooo," she whined, her open mouth following the pizza as he pulled it away: "No, Jack, it's good, I'm not done yet! Augh…" She slumped in defeat as he managed to extricate the food from her grasp then watched sullenly as he dropped it back in the box, closed the box and pushed it far away, out of her reach.

"It's time for you to sing for your supper," he told her, dusting off his hands. "And by that, I certainly don't mean that I wish for you to literally sing. I don't think I could take that again."

"Jeez, Jack," she huffed, irked by her unexpected food deprivation: "I don't know why we are even sitting here debating the merits of these two women, I really don't."

Jack shook his head piteously. "I can't go on like this. I have to make a decision. Tonight."

"Hey, as far as I can tell, you already have."

He paused. "Continue."

Liz got up from the couch, moving over to the two stands that held the pictures of Jack's two lovers. "Look at these women, Jack. By your own admission, these are two amazing women that you cannot separate."

He nodded. "Yes."

"But you are going about this in all the wrong way. You're thinking about it too hard." She turned to the whiteboard that had his scribbled Hard Equations And Rational Thoughts on it. She picked up the duster, ruthlessly scrubbed them out then turned to him. "There. How does that look?"

Jack stared at what remained, the letters H, E, A, R and T in red. He shook his head. "I'm not really following."

Liz sighed, lifting a hand towards the two pictures. "Jack, the truth is…if you really cared about either of these ladies, you wouldn't be seeing the other one. If you actually loved one of them, there would be no decision to make."

"Interesting..." he murmured.

"So…" she shrugged, glancing down at her feet: "maybe if you can't choose between them, then only real answer is…neither."

He got up from the couch, moving towards her. "Oh Lemon, I couldn't stand to start all over again."

"What other choice do you have?" she asked him. "Assuming you want to be with someone you actually love."

"Of course I do," he replied earnestly. "You know I do. I've always believed I was destined for another great love."

"Or twenty," she said under her breath.

Jack's eyes were focused back on his possible, prospective girlfriends/wives/soulmates/mothers of his children. "And perhaps I don't love them now. Perhaps I'm not completely and utterly in love with either Avery or Nancy. But that doesn't mean I couldn't be. In the future." He faced her, expression wretched: "This is about my future, Lemon. Everything about my future life hangs on this one, momentous decision."

"Then I guess you have to decide what it is you really want. Because this isn't about them, Jack. You're focusing on them when it's all about you, figuring out what you want. So-" Liz collected Nancy's picture, holding it up next to her face: "Do you want someone you've known for years, someone who likes you for you, who knows where you've come from? Someone with whom you have shared experiences and a long connection, who makes you feel all warm and comfy? Or-" she reached over and grabbed Avery's picture, holding it up on the opposite side: "Do you want someone you're hot for but who gets you, is similar to you? Someone who you can start over with, start from the beginning with, build a life and share it all with?"

For a few moments, Jack's eyes travelled back and forth between the two images of his two different options. "So…it comes down to…friend or lover?"

She nodded, still holding the two pictures. "Maybe it does."

"But…" Jack was silent a long time, lost in thought: "what if I want both? What if I_ need…_both?"

Liz let out a breath, the pictures dropping to her sides. She put a hand on his shoulder, a comically rueful expression on her face. "Then you're screwed, Donaghy."

He smiled, meeting her eyes.

She smiled back, adding carefully: "Because neither of these fine ladies seems to be both for you." She let the pictures slip from her hand to the cluttered coffee table. "Neither one can be everything you want."

Jack glanced sadly at the two discarded photos, but gave a small nod. "You might be right."

_END. _


End file.
